Everyday Examples of Artificial Intelligence

With all the excitement and hype about AI that’s “just around the corner” self-driving cars, instant machine translation, etc. it can be difficult to see how AI is affecting the lives of regular people from moment to moment. What are examples of artificial intelligence that you’re already using rightnow? Virtual Personal Assistant

Siri, Google Now, and Cortana are all intelligent digital personal assistants on various platforms (iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile). In short, they help find useful information when you ask for it using your voice; you can say “Where’s the nearest Chinese restaurant?”, “What’s on my schedule today?”, “Remind me to call Jerry at eight o’clock,” and the assistant will respond by finding information, relaying information from your phone, or sending commands to other apps.

AI is important in these apps, as they collect information on your requests and use that information to better recognize your speech and serve you results that are tailored to your preferences. Microsoft says that Cortana “continually learns about its user” and that it will eventually develop the ability to anticipate users’ needs. Virtual personal assistants process a huge amount of data from a variety of sources to learn about users and be more effective in helping them organize and track their information.

Ridesharing Apps Like Uber

How do they determine the price of your ride? How do they minimize the wait time once you hail a car? How do these services optimally match you with other passengers to minimize detours? The answer to all these questions is AI and Machine Learning.

Engineering Lead for Uber ATC Jeff Schneider discussed in an NPR interview how the company uses ML to predict rider demand to ensure that “surge pricing”(short periods of sharp price increases to decrease rider demand and increase driver supply) will soon no longer be necessary. Uber’s Head of Machine Learning Danny Lange confirmed Uber’s use of machine learning for ETAs for rides, estimated meal delivery times on UberEATS, computing optimal pickup locations, as well as for fraud detection.

Commercial Flights Uses AI Autopilot

AI autopilots in commercial airlines is a surprisingly early use of AI technology that dates as far back as 1914, depending on how loosely you define autopilot. The New York Times reports that the average flight of a Boeing plane involves only seven minutes of human-steered flight, which is typically reserved only for takeoff and landing.

Fraud Detection

Have you ever gotten an email or a letter asking you if you made a specific purchase on your credit card? Many banks send these types of communications if they think there’s a chance that fraud may have been committed on your account, and want to make sure that you approve the purchase before sending money over to another company. Artificial intelligence is often the technology deployed to monitor for this type of fraud.

In many cases, computers are given a very large sample of fraudulent and non-fraudulent purchases and asked to learn to look for signs that a transaction falls into one category or another. After enough training, the system will be able to spot a fraudulent transaction based on the signs and indications that it learned through the training exercise.

Smart Home Devices

Many smart home devices now include the ability to learn your behavior patterns and help you save money by adjusting the settings on your thermostat or other appliances in an effort to increase convenience and save energy. For example, turning your oven on when you leave work instead of waiting to get home is a very convenient ability. A thermostat that knows when you’re home and adjusts the temperature accordingly can help you save money by not heating the house when you’re out.

Lighting is another place where you might see basic artificial intelligence; by setting defaults and preferences, the lights around your house (both inside and outside) might adjust based on where you are and what you’re doing; dimmer for watching TV, brighter for cooking, and somewhere in the middle for eating, for example. The uses of AI in smart homes are limited only by our imagination.

AI Serving Millions daily

Your smart phone, your car, your bank, and your house all use artificial intelligence on a daily basis; sometimes it’s obvious what its’ doing, like when you ask Siri to get you directions to the nearest gas station. Sometimes it’s less obvious, like when you make an abnormal purchase on your credit card and don’t get a fraud alert from your bank. AI is everywhere, and it’s making a huge difference in our lives every day.